"Solonik and Selicia - from the very beginning, they were two people."

Annan turned back to look at Selicia: "Do you remember? About Nicholas II.

"He was just an afterimage from a nightmare. But he thought he was the legendary alchemist Nicholas.

"You only retained Solonik's memory - you are completely different from him in terms of personality and personal abilities. Do you think this is because you are too inferior, so your appearance changed after you got this body?"

The corner of Annan's mouth raised slightly: "So, have you ever considered... that this is your character?"

"...Could it be that I am Ingrid?"

Selicia's pupils shook violently.

After hearing Annan's analysis, she now began to seriously doubt whether she was the Ingrid who had forgotten her memory.

Annan shook his head: "No, you are indeed yourself.

"Because this body is indeed a 'created doll'. It is impossible for Ingrid to become a doll.

"But the question is... who made you?"

As the saying goes...it's easy to change a country, but it's hard to change one's nature.

If you think about it carefully, who gave Solonik his current identity of "Celicia"?

——It is none other than "Professor Wolf" Frederick Wolfheart.

His "shell" comes from the Melvin family, and the inner part is part of the golden-level idol wizard "Professor Gray" - the "Bone Healer" plus "Professor Wolf" can be combined into "Professor Gray".

At that time, "Ingrid" and Frederick were both studying with Professor Gray.

They were classmates and had an ambiguous teenage relationship.

Among the people of the opposite sex whom "Ingrid" had taken a liking to and intended to use as ritual materials, this name had appeared: Frederick Melvin.

From here, we can actually deduce that Professor Gray already knew Ingrid.

She is not the girl with long dark blue hair when she was studying with Professor Gray.

But as the "Lord of the Tower of Thousand Faces" and the "Pope of Miss Good Luck", the real Ingrid!

However, when Ingrid, who had sealed her own memory, came to "study", Professor Gray didn't say anything. It was impossible for him to not understand this... Back then, the God of Understanding and Resonance, the "Feaster",

He also banned his memory from traveling in the human world.

Looking back, Professor Gray still reads poetry in front of Ingrid every day.

What he recited was "Praise to the Name of the Heavenly Car".

It's like hoping the other person will remember something.

In other words... Professor Gray has been standing with Ingrid from the very beginning!

And Selicia's body was made by "Professor Wolf" himself.

"...Then, whose appearance does this belong to?"

Annan replied affirmatively: "There is no doubt that this appearance comes from 'Ingrid'!"

Hearing this, Arthur's pupils shrank: "Speaking of which... I once knew a son of the tower. Her appearance was very similar to the captain..."

"She's your childhood sweetheart, right."

Annan asked calmly.

Arthur paused and nodded: "It can be considered."

"That means..."

Ao Feishi's expression was a little complicated.

It seemed to be a little pity, but also like happiness. There seemed to be a little sadness between the eyebrows.

And Selicia hugged herself tightly, shivering as if afraid of the cold, and lowered her head.

The girl with long pink and purple hair trembled slightly.

——She herself also realized the problem.

But that truth must also be told.

So Annan told the truth:

"Celicia, you are not actually Solonik. You have been a girl from the beginning... In other words, you used 'Solonik' as a sacrifice to create the 'Idol of Ingrid'

'."

This is the most original definition of "Idol School".

So-called...clay idols and stone statues.

Artificially endow certain symbols with specific meanings, hoping that they can play some special role through the "law of similarity" and "law of contact".

The most typical one is the "idol" used to pray for rain.

The most popular spell in ancient China was the spell of praying for rain. Generally speaking, they would first make a statue of the Dragon King out of mud or wood, and then hold a complicated praying ceremony for rain. But if praying for rain failed too many times, they would become angry.

He was whipped, scolded, put in chains, and even toppled and demolished the "idol" of the Dragon King. If it didn't work, just replace it with another one.

There are similar emergency measures in Japan. If the rain prayer spell fails too many times, angry villagers will drag out the local gods enshrined in the shrine and throw them into the rice fields.

Italians in Europe also tried to use "icons" of saints to pray for rain, and when they failed, they threw the icons into pools or were expelled from the parishes they guarded. The congregation of Porto Licata

, they also removed the clothes of the saints during drought, put them in shackles and chains, and even slapped them in the face to threaten "it must rain immediately."

This method can be found all over the world—everywhere in the transition where stone sculpture technology has emerged but is still ignorant, there is a similar tradition.

Of course, these "idols" do not have the power to pray for rain. But people forcefully give them this concept - and treat them as living creatures to worship, control or threaten.

It is precisely because they are living creatures that they are afraid, greedy, and... afraid of others.

Grant "identity" to the concept of nothingness and the lifeless clay statue.

Make it "think of itself as a human being".

This is the basis of "Idol Magic".

"I understand!"

Euphemia, who also belongs to a family of idol school, was the first to fully understand Annan's meaning: "Although the captain thinks that he is a 'Solonik', the character we all see is the same as Ingrid.

Exactly the same as 'Celicia'. Then the captain actually exists as the idol of 'Ingrid'.

"She thinks that she is a 'Soronike', just like the poison hidden in the ice cube. As the ice cube gradually melts, the poison is gradually released into the cup... and as she gradually denies that she is a 'Soronike'

As time passes, she will get closer to Ingrid.

"Actually, at the moment Selicia was born, Solonik had actually been killed by Professor Wolf. What was left behind was all the memories of Solonik, who mistakenly thought that he was a Cyrus whose body had been replaced.

Lycia'!

"If you simply give Celicia a personality, she will still think that she is just a 'doll.' She must be made to think that she is a living thing - a living person, in order to form a 'strong idol relationship' with Ingrid.

'!"

That is to say.

Before Selicia denied her life as a "Soronike", she was a "Soronike". Even if the gods came in person, they could only find out the composition of "Soronike" from the depths of her soul.

.

But when she denied her past.

Completely rejecting his greatest wish to pursue Vladimir, the Defying Winter.

The moment when I thought that "Soronik's existence has no meaning" and thought that "it would be best for me never to be Solonik"...

The highly toxic outer ice cubes melted.

She truly became Celicia, Ingrid’s substitute!

"That is to say," Annan said calmly, "after Selicia saw the Winter Defender and was abandoned by him...or maybe some time before that."

The Winterbreaker is Solonik's teacher after all.

It is different from Annan's initial belief that "he arrogantly thought he knew Solonik".

He did know Solonik.

Because of this, he was the first person to notice something was wrong.

He realized that Annan was trapped in Ingrid's conspiracy - this was a conspiracy that Annan could not crack.

Because Annan is a "good guy".

Precisely because of the death of the Winter Defying Man, Annan was even less likely to kill Selicia—nor could he kill someone whom Selicia valued. Because even Annan himself did not regard Selicia as "Thoreau"

Nick".

"-No matter what, I refuse to help you.

"——I am a wicked person. But there is nothing wrong with it. I accept all the consequences gladly, but I will never regret it.

"——Evil people must behave like evil people until the end."
To be continued...